Article on the trouble/success building public transit in St. Louis.

[brizee]

Just a look into the potential knife fight in a telephone booth getting actual transit into this place is gonna be.

[Wesley Mouch]

Just a look into the potential knife fight in a telephone booth getting actual transit into this place is gonna be.

Interesting article. Thanks for posting.

I've have used their light rail -- so they've already got actual transit in place. The article is mostly about the fight to get the tax subsidies to pay for it.

This fight sounds ugly, but its just politics. No different that any other public issues these days. What the article didn't answer to my satisfaction is why was there opposition to transit funding? Was it really just opposition to transit -- or was it opposition to who was going to run the system and whose money was going to pay for it. Typically, that's the real battle.

The article is biased. Makes it sound like any opposition to funding was an opposition to transit. Like in Detroit -- opposition to funding Detroit's spending isn't always distaste for Detroit. Sometimes its just a vote against corruption and waste.

If we want public services, we also need to find a way to provide them efficiently.

[professorscott]

What the article didn't answer to my satisfaction is why was there opposition to transit funding? Was it really just opposition to transit -- or was it opposition to who was going to run the system and whose money was going to pay for it. Typically, that's the real battle.

Wesley,

Some colleagues and I studied this in five cities, and St. Louis happened to be one of the cities. I don't have the report with me right now, but when I'm home I'll dig it up and post here the basic answer to your question. In general, though, the fight is about competing priorities for use of funds [[e.g. if you get transit then I can't get X, whatever X is); I'm not aware of any really anti-transit sentiment per se in any of the cities we studied. As I said, though, once I'm in the same ZIP code as the report, I'll post a summary.

Cheers,
Prof. Scott

[nain rouge]

I do find it curious when people say Detroit punches above its weight. Who do we punch above? New York? Chicago? Los Angeles? Philadelphia? Washington DC? Boston? OK, so we have a better art museum than you might find in a 'newer' city than Miami, but what else? I think we punch about right for our size. I don't think the crumbling Ford factories in Highland Park or what have you count for much in real terms.

[LeannaM]

Interesting article. Thanks for posting.

I've have used their light rail -- so they've already got actual transit in place. The article is mostly about the fight to get the tax subsidies to pay for it.

This fight sounds ugly, but its just politics. No different that any other public issues these days. What the article didn't answer to my satisfaction is why was there opposition to transit funding? Was it really just opposition to transit -- or was it opposition to who was going to run the system and whose money was going to pay for it. Typically, that's the real battle.

The article is biased. Makes it sound like any opposition to funding was an opposition to transit. Like in Detroit -- opposition to funding Detroit's spending isn't always distaste for Detroit. Sometimes its just a vote against corruption and waste.

If we want public services, we also need to find a way to provide them efficiently.

St. Louis is still mostly car-centered. Suburbanites don't want to pay for a transit system they rarely use. Concern about corruption may have been part of it, but I think it was mostly that suburbanites don't want to pay for things they don't use. And, in general, people don't like more taxes.

Some local St. Louis celebrities, including Mike Shannon, had an ad supporting transit.

St. Louis Television Commercial Production - Metro "I Love Transit"
http://youtu.be/2fep1jeO6pI

They later found a way to get the funding, I think, but MetroLink and MetroBus had to cut back funding for a while.

St. Louis' transit system is not extensive, but it is good for what it is. It covers Downtown Central West End and the northside but doesn't really cover the Southside. I don't live in St. Louis, but I've visited quite a few times and transit does come in handy if you are staying Downtown and going to games. You can use it to get to all three sports teams venues and some of the other attractions. If you plan things just right you can maybe park your car at the hotel and not need it again until you live. The MetroLink also goes to Lambert Airport.

I didn't read the whole article because I have heard a bit about it. They would eventually like to expand light rail, but as far as I know that's not in the works.

There is a Trolley they hope to start building lines for soon
http://nextstl.com/transportation/lo...groundbreaking

[professorscott]

As promised, this is from our report:

"The failure of the vote in St. Louis County prior to 2010 had a variety of causes. In 1997 for example, when the County vote was defeated by a margin of 48% to 52%, one cause given at the time was that the proposal was written in such a way that voters were not certain the money would be used as promised. In 1994 a ¼% tax had been passed for light rail, but the light rail did not happen then because Federal matching funds were not awarded.

The suburban communities were said to be “strongly opposed” because they were not included. Anti-tax groups opposed the tax, and GOP leaders used it as a partisan issue. The nationally common ant-transit arguments surfaced: “too few people ride it”, “only helps the poor”, “riders should pay their own way”, etc. According to the Post-Dispatch the agency's credibility had been hurt when, after the MetroLink experienced major cost overruns, the agency sued the original designers to recover some of the overage, but lost.

The pro-transit sources spent $750,000, which was three times what was spent in opposition, but the newspaper referred to the pro-transit campaign as a “stealth campaign” [[in which the campaigner intentionally leaves off details about a proposal to forestall opposition in detail) in which the messaging was vague and ineffective.

Werbel and Haas add that as the proposition did not specify that the tax increase would be dedicated to MetroLink expansion, opponents were able to tap into the bus system's unpopularity."

[Wesley Mouch]

St. Louis is still mostly car-centered. Suburbanites don't want to pay for a transit system they rarely use. Concern about corruption may have been part of it, but I think it was mostly that suburbanites don't want to pay for things they don't use. And, in general, people don't like more taxes.
...

Decisions aren't usually single-issue. I think you're probably right that they feel that funding something for the urban center isn't the best use of their tax dollars.

[LeannaM]

Decisions aren't usually single-issue. I think you're probably right that they feel that funding something for the urban center isn't the best use of their tax dollars.

I'm repeating what I heard from suburbanites at the time, but there may have been other issues at play.

The County does fund the St. Louis Zoo and I think some of the museums. However, I heard and read some comments from suburbanites who did not want to fund a transit system they never use.

[brizee]

This video is a Nashville. TN look at Cleveland's BRT



I am NOT a fan of the current proposed magic school busses here in the D. However living corpses like the ones at 1:35 are going to be a constant enemy to ANY transit improvement here. I hope that retread CEO the RTA hired is up to the task of overcoming them.

Also some folks are in favor of completely merging DDOT and SMART [[I'm not. Different communities have different often competing needs). A similar is being made in Chicago, a town with transit literally centuries ahead of ours.

The president of one of Chicago's operator's calls it foolish.

Capital improvement that might benefit the city heavily could be stalled because "the region" won't see the totality of improvements. The RTA is badly needed and has it's place with intercommunity operations.

Detroit transportation is starting from the absolute bottom. Let's keep from making the mistakes of other's on the way up.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

Brizee, I see your points but I am not sure I agree with all of them. To see a lot of people starting to use mass transit in Detroit or anywhere requires more than good intentions. The RTA should either operate, or at least have authority over, the component transit systems. Lack of connectivity and coordination hurts all the parts. "Local" buses in the city and to a lesser extent in the denser suburbs should connect to the "regional" systems like BRT & M1 rail, and those systems should hit transit centers like train stations, bus depots, and airports. If all the systems operate independently they will never agree on major decisions [[or minor ones) that will not let the parts "gel" into a whole system.

Don't get me wrong, the RTA is not a panacea. It is a tool. And it could be used badly or not at all. It will take solid, honest leadership for many years for us to have a regional transit system. If you let corrupt or lazy or just uninspired people run it, it will never work. But without it, there will never be a coordinated network of buses and rails with logical stops & schedules, built in a way that allows it to flourish.

[brizee]

Cincinatti's new ratdick Mayor elect promised and is threatening to enforce the killing of the city's already under construction light rail line.

He wants to put the money into busses and freeways.

The Feds have promised to snatch aid immediately.

And it may be withheld for years to come.

If the RTA were smart [[this fact is still TBD) they'd be smooching, and kissing a lot of federal ass right now.

Might it be Detroit's turn to profit off of the stupidity of others?

Here's hoping [[sort of, I honestly hate to see another area go as bass ackwards as we've been).

[greekt0wn]

With an actual unemployment rate of about 50%, Detroit's M1 will be moving unemployed people around the city to do whatever it is that they do. Mark my words, it will be hundreds of millions of dollars down the toilet and will never be profitable. I support high[[er) speed Amtrak to and from Pontiac/Detroit/Dearborn/Ann Arbor/Kzoo/Chicago, but the M1 project is severely out of touch with reality.

[professorscott]

Mark my words, it will be hundreds of millions of dollars down the toilet and will never be profitable. I support high[[er) speed Amtrak to and from Pontiac/Detroit/Dearborn/Ann Arbor/Kzoo/Chicago, but the M1 project is severely out of touch with reality.

Two points.

1. M1 Rail is not meant to be "profitable". No public transportation anywhere in North America turns a profit. It is a public service, like libraries, roads and fire departments. Please tell me the most recent year, for example, in which Interstate 75 returned a profit to investors. Also, the hundreds of millions of dollars it will cost are largely coming from private, well, either investors or philanthropists, depending on how you look at them. Wealthy people are free to throw their money at whatever they like, and I'm pleased to see some of them deciding to throw it at something that might prove helpful to a part of Detroit that is showing promise.

2. The most wonderful Amtrak type service you can imagine will have a huge problem for people whose destination is downtown Detroit: it does not reach downtown, and never will. The idea of improved service between Midtown and other places on Amtrak or commuter trains is one of the reasons that M1 Rail was ever considered in the first place.

Happy Thanksgiving fellow DYers!

Prof. Scott

[brizee]

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news...oject/6956069/

I take back what I said about the Michigan house. While they are pigshit terrible, they aren't the worst. Tennessee just outdid them in their wildest dreams.

Forget making the Detroit Transit Authority need unanimous approval for rail.

They just BANNED Bus Rapid Transit. Statedwide.